Letters to the editor policy: To submit a letter to the editor for possible inclusion in the paper, email us at letters@thecapistranodispatch.com. The Capistrano Dispatch reserves the right to edit reader-submitted letters for length and is not responsible for the claims made or the information written by the writers. Please limit your letters to 350 words.

RON BACON, San Juan Capistrano

In the Nov. 9-22, 2018 edition, only two letters were published and they concerned national issues and took decidedly partisan positions without rebuttal (I understand that these were the only two letters received prior to this edition going to press).

I believe that you’d be better off printing no letters or soliciting counterbalancing opinions than publishing in such a lopsided way. I propose that you make and clearly state a policy decision that “Letters” are to be local in nature and concerning how residents of SJC and CA might work cooperatively on issues that don’t divide us (at least not as much).

The two letters appear to be an effort to portray those opposed to the Obama-era EPA rulings and to the U.N. IPCC’s position as “anti-science,” which is in and of itself dishonest and non-scientific. Given that only about 7 million Californians voted for governor out of a population of about 39 million, it would be interesting to know what percentage of SJC voters participated in this past election.

That would be noteworthy and could be the basis of non-partisan reporting about voter behaviors and possible attitudes. If SJC residents’ voting patterns reflect those of the state, I’m interested in helping to educate and encourage my fellow townspeople so that we don’t fall prey to the thought that our votes really don’t matter anymore.

Although encouraged to write a rebuttal to the letters, I’d prefer to not get into a discussion regarding the man-made global warming hoax or the endangered species act as neither is something that gets decided on a local level. Instead, I’d prefer to see a change in the topics of conversation in the Dispatch Letters section. I hope to see The Capistrano Dispatch make every effort to fulfill its commitment to what’s looking like the lost art of unbiased reporting, at least on a national level.

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I am grateful that the Dispatch publishes letters relating to environmental issues. Global warming and resultant climate change are local, as well as global issues, and if we continue to ignore these issues, future generations will pay for our denial.

Already people are being forced to migrate because of climate change. Nearly 20=percent of the Marshallese islanders have migrated here, and the remainder will most likely migrate here in 2019=2020, as their homeland disappears beneath Pacific waters.

Likewise, thousands of Guatemalans are in route here, Extended drought has destroyed their crops, resulting in loss of income, starvation and increasing violence. They are refugees in every sense of the world.

So, please, do not change your policy. We need to be informed, on all issues, local, national, and global.

For the record, here is my unedited letter which appeared in the Nov. 9th edition print edition of the Dispatch. It was one of the two letters that Mr. Bacon is protesting.

,CAN WE SAVE OUR FUTURE? SHOULD WE?

The link between CO2 and the Earth’s temperature was made in the 1820s by Joseph Fourier who first realized that the atmosphere is heated from above and below: first, by sunlight as it shines through and second by the infrared energy the Earth emits as it cools overnight.

John Tyndall demonstrated in 1859 that some gases block infrared radiation, and noted that changes in the concentration of the gases could bring climate change. That have a fundamental

It was Svante Arrhenius, however, who in 1886 —132 years ago — was first to calculate the extent to which increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) will increase Earth’s surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. Arguably, Arrhenius is the father of climate change science.

On August 14, 1912, a newspaper called the Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette printed a prescient paragraph in its “science notes and news” section, warning that the Earth’s atmosphere was changing because of the way the world’s economies were ramping up production of fossil fuels. Notably “Coal consumption affecting climate,” the small headline read. That was our second warning, 106 years ago.

In 1988, 30 years ago Dr. James Hansen, a NASA climate scientist gave a Senate committee a dire warning: the Earth’s temperature was rising, and humans were to blame. Three warnings over the past 132 years, and we have done virtually nothing to stop the catastrophe being created by global warming.

An now the United Nation’s “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” has published a new report which outlines the need for “rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C, stating we only have 12 years to effect this change.

12 years to effect major changes; impossible you say. No its not, all we need is the political will. We’ve done it before, we can do it again. Within two months of the Dec. 7, 1941, bombing of Pearl Harbor, the last civilian cars rolled off the assembly lines, and auto plants converted to military-only production of arms, munitions, trucks, tanks and planes. In the next four years we split the atom and created the most destructive weapon in human history. We can save the world again if we put our minds together and work together.

It’s up to each of us to decide. I believe future generations have a fundamental right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Furthermore, I believe it is our duty to preserve these rights for them to the best of our abilities.